Warren Draws Scrutiny for Medicare for All, but Her Opponents Are No Wiser on Healthcare

Whenever anyone, especially a politician, starts a sentence with, “Let’s be clear,” you know they’re on the defensive.

Moderators knew it at Tuesday night’s CNN Democratic presidential debate, when they repeatedly pressed Elizabeth Warren to answer a yes or no question regarding her support for Medicare for All. They simply asked the Massachusetts senator whether her proposed big government takeover of the healthcare industry would raise taxes on the middle class. Naturally, Warren failed to answer the basic question.

Warren may have been the one on the defensive in this week’s debate, but her opponents’ proposals for taking control of the American healthcare system are no better.

At least Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was honest — he knows that Medicare for All will result in higher taxes for the middle class, and is willing to admit it. But in Sanders’ Marxist view, he would rather see everyone grow equally as poor than allow anyone to achieve prosperity in the free market. That’s the truth when it comes to socialism, and it was openly apparent during the most recent Democratic presidential debate in Ohio.

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg was not much better than Warren when he floated the idea of providing a public option to deliver healthcare coverage. Any public option would undercut the private sector, which is capable of providing better healthcare than any bureaucrat ever could, and instead put costs back on the taxpayer.

And who would foot the bill under Buttigieg’s plan? The very same people Warren doesn’t want to admit would pay for her plan — the middle class.

Meanwhile, presidential contender Joe Biden did himself no favors when he tried to take credit for the “public option” plan, what Democrats call “Medicare for All who want it,” that everyone on stage was talking about. Is Uncle Joe for real? Based on the Affordable Care Act’s abysmal track record, I’m not sure why Biden would want to rhetorically tie his plan to an even worse proposal, “Medicare for All who want it.”

All the candidates are playing with fire: Americans don’t want to see their private plans taken away, the eventual end result of Medicare for All. Nor do they want to see their neighborhood hospital close because it can’t compete with the absurd mandates and regulations that come with socialized healthcare.

Still, Americans are generous, caring people, so of course we want everyone to have healthcare. Unfortunately, most of the Democratic candidates were all too happy to endorse variants of a plan that would limit healthcare access and decrease the level of care for almost everyone.

The candidates’ reference to widespread support for their healthcare plans was a perverse caricature of the caring nature of Americans. They know their plans would be worse for everyone, but they instead cloak their big government takeover under the guise of “healthcare for all.”